Accelerating progress on the SDGs: Insights from the Development Evidence Portal

Fréjus Thoto, Executive Director, ACED

Fréjus Thoto is the Executive Director of the African Center for Equitable Development (ACED), a Think-and-Do Tank dedicated to strengthening evidence production and use in decision-making for effective development policies. Under his leadership, ACED collaborates with governments and development partners across West Africa to address key challenges in food systems, the nature economy, the digital economy, and human development. Fréjus holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics.’

Birte Snilstveit, Director – Synthesis and Reviews and Head of London office

Birte leads a team focused on synthesizing evidence to inform policy in low- and middle-income countries. She has authored major systematic reviews on education, WASH, social cohesion, and forestry, and pioneered 3ie’s evidence gap maps and Development Evidence Portal. An editor for the Campbell Collaboration, she researches agriculture, education, environment, and evidence synthesis methods. Birte holds a BSc in Politics with Sociology (Aston University), an MA in Political Economy of Development (University of Birmingham), and is pursuing a PhD in Global Public Health Policy (LSHTM).

Martin Bruder, Head of Department Civil Society, Human Rights, DEval

Martin Bruder is the Head, Department Civil Society, Human Rights, DEval. He studied Psychology in Freiburg, Germany, and Cambridge, UK and holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Cambridge, UK. He has also served as the Scientific Project Manager at the evaluation department of the head office of the German Council of Science and Humanities including participation in institutional and strategic evaluations; Fellow and Junior Research Group Leader at the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz (2010-2012); Head of Section “Monitoring, Evaluation, Research” at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) including commissioning and management of project and program evaluations as well as facilitating the development of a results-based management.

Mark Engelbert, Senior Evaluation Specialist & Leader, Development Evidence Portal, 3ie

Mark manages 3ie’s Development Evidence Portal and supports the production of systematic reviews and evidence gap maps in a variety of topics, with emphasis on agriculture and immunisation. Before joining 3ie, Mark was a consultant for a number of development organizations, working on projects such as an experimental study examining how new evidence affects the decisions of policymakers and exploratory research to identify the most cost-effective anti-poverty interventions. Mark has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Maryland, a master's in international development, School for International Training and bachelor's in philosophy, College of William & Mary, Virginia.

Kerry Albright,  Deputy director of Evaluation, UNICEF, Co-Chair SDG Synthesis Coalition

Kerry Albright is a Social and Political Scientist with over 25 years of experience in international development and evidence informed decision-making. In September 2022, she took up a position as Deputy Director /Principal Adviser-Evaluation for UNICEF’s global evaluation function, based in UNICEF’s Evaluation Office in New York City, USA. In this capacity, she oversees work on evaluation strategic partnerships, including for evaluation synthesis; national evaluation capacity development and evaluation uptake and impact amongst other responsibilities. Prior to this, she was Deputy Director a.i. and Chief of Research Facilitation and Knowledge Management of UNICEF’s Global Office of Research & Foresight (UNICEF Innocenti), based in Florence, Italy where she was responsible for research oversight and capacity-building across UNICEF’s 190+ offices worldwide. A long-term advocate of evidence-informed decision-making, whilst at Innocenti she introduced structured evidence synthesis capacity at the Office and strengthened a global ethics in evidence generation function. She also enhanced attention to evidence uptake and impact measurement and designed various global capacity-strengthening products and trainings to help build evidence literacy and critical thinking skills across UNICEF and partners.

Ismael Kawooya, Senior Research Scientist, ACRES

Ismael Kawooya is a knowledge broker with nearly ten years of experience operating at the nexus between evidence and policy, especially in urgent or crisis situations. Ismael leads a dynamic team of knowledge brokers at the Center for Rapid Evidence Synthesis (ACRES), a knowledge brokering institution, in Uganda to improve the use of timely evidence in urgent policy processes. He has trained and mentored over 20 teams to design, develop and implement rapid response services for evidence-informed policymaking. Ismael is instrumental in developing training initiatives to push the frontiers of EIPM in Africa, such as nurturing the next generation of leaders in EIPM in Africa and applying innovative approaches for EIPM, especially in urgent and crisis situations. Lastly, Ismael is a trained medical doctor and clinical epidemiologist and has won the Africa Evidence Leadership Award 2024 winner in recognition of his work to promote the use of evidence in policy processes in Africa.

• Exclusive insights from 3ie & DEval on key findings from the SDG evidence landscape to gain actionable insights on evidence trends, opportunities, and gaps
• Panel discussion with global experts on bridging the evidence gap
• Real-world use cases on leveraging DEP for informed decision-making
• Interactive Q&A with leading development practitioners